272 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
garded us more suspiciously. Polis pushed the canoe 
steadily forward in the shallow water, and I for a mo¬ 
ment forgot the moose in attending to some pretty rose- 
colored Polygonums just rising above the surface, but the 
canoe soon grounded in the mud eight or ten rods dis¬ 
tant from the moose, and the Indian seized his gun and 
prepared to fire. After standing still a moment, she 
turned slowly, as usual, so as to expose her side, and he 
improved this moment to fire, over our heads. She 
thereupon moved off eight or ten rods at a moderate 
pace, across a shallow bay, to an old standing-place of 
hers, behind some fallen red maples, on the opposite 
shore, and there she stood still again a dozen or fourteen 
rods from us, while the Indian hastily loaded and fired 
twice at her, without her moving. My companion, who 
passed him his caps and bullets, said that Polis was as 
excited as a boy of fifteen, that his hand trembled, and 
he once put his ramrod back up-side down. This was 
remarkable for so experienced a hunter. Perhaps he 
was anxious to make a good shot before us. The white 
hunter had told me that the Indians were not good shots, 
because they were excited, though he said that we had 
got a good hunter with us. 
The Indian now pushed quickly and quietly back, and 
a long distance round, in order to get into the outlet, — 
for he had fired over the neck of a peninsula between it 
and the lake, — till we approached the place where the 
moose had stood, when he exclaimed, “ She is a goner,” 
and was surprised that we did not see her as soon as he 
did. There, to be sure, she lay perfectly dead, with her 
tongue hanging out, just where she had stood to receive 
the last shots, looking unexpectedly large and horse-like, 
and we saw where the bullets had scarred the trees. 
